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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27065434">you don’t need to know everything</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/junesangie/pseuds/junesangie'>junesangie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SuperM (Korea Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Eating Disorders, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, I’ll explain in the notes, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Past Lives, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, i think everyone is depressed here, taeyong is trying so hard, they’ve all got some sort of power mutation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:55:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,037</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27065434</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/junesangie/pseuds/junesangie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>taeyong was not born to bear witness for these men, nor should his loyalties lie buried deep within them. </p><p>but he does. they do. and he knows that one day, just maybe, they can find an undying light whose heart won’t fail at the mention of such pain.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Byun Baekhyun &amp; Lee Taeyong, Kim Jongin | Kai &amp; Lee Taeyong, Kim Jongin | Kai/Lee Taemin, Lee Taemin &amp; Lee Taeyong, Lee Taeyong &amp; Wong Yukhei | Lucas, Lee Taeyong/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten, Mark Lee &amp; Lee Taeyong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you don’t need to know everything</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i have returned with a new pen name!! also, this is slightly different than my usual, so i hope it’s okay O_0</p><p>cross-posted on wattpad! titled ‘normal | superm’. find me @vengemin!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s early morning when Taeyong finds him.</p><p> </p><p>By him, he means Mark, standing in the middle of the kitchen without a single light on. He doesn’t need them, they both know. But somehow, the sight is more unnerving without the ever-present glow of orange bulbs above them. He nearly asks why Mark is there, but as soon as both eyes adjust to the darkness, he decides this doesn’t require an answer.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a knife—one for paring, not large but still so incredibly sharp—hovering above an exposed wrist, and he feels like this isn’t something made to watch, to sob over the next day and so many afterward. He would never forgive himself. The others would hate him.</p><p> </p><p>He grabs Mark from the back, prying the silvery weapon from his hands and ignoring the sob punched from the younger’s throat upon impact and surprise. ‘Ignore’ is too strong a word, perhaps, for it sinks through his clothing like rainwater and weighs him down like cement. </p><p> </p><p>The tears are so easy to emerge, he almost wishes neither would cry at all. But Mark’s veins, such a beautiful swirling blue, flow too bright now, just a little more agitated and it’s evident in both his face and the shade of his power. Taeyong can’t stop the crying, but he certainly can withhold his own. </p><p> </p><p>“<em> Why? </em> ” he asks, so small against the elder, wrecked and in pain by the way his teeth clench and both lashes drip saltwater in which they’ll drown if neither moves to swim. “ <em> Why won’t you let me? </em>” And to someone else, it would make no sense. But to Taeyong, it’s hell to scrape the answer from a swollen throat, to tell him he can’t and he shouldn’t because they are better than this. All of them. Even Mark, too afraid of himself to be proud of the individuality such abilities bring. </p><p> </p><p>His hold is tighter, even when weakened fingers pull at him, begging to be let go. He won’t do it again, he knows it’s bad and he’s sorry, he wasn’t thinking before it just happened.</p><p> </p><p>“<em> I’m sorry, </em>” is the simple, useless apology he drags off his chest. Like thorns, but too desperate for death, clinging in their short lifespan for what feels like a lifetime.</p><p> </p><p>Things like this dig into your flesh. And Ten is the perfect example.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>When he dances, you’d never notice a wince here and there. It can be explained by anyone: a stiff limb, sore bruises from yesterday. The excuses to stuff false security past their teeth are good enough, it doesn’t matter, they have more to worry about anyway.</p><p> </p><p>Taeyong knows the truth. He knows better than to trust them because he’s seen what really happens, and it’s uglier than they will ever know.</p><p> </p><p>Clothes are torn off time and time again with them. Soon as practice is over and sweat drenches their bodies, they can find an empty room before they leave. Sometimes it’s too tiring for immediate action. They wait, shower, clean themselves up before ruining it all for a much less important reason. </p><p> </p><p>He loves the way Chittaphon’s hair falls into pretty eyes, almost concealing them yet not quite able to mask the determined shine. Or he did, until they stopped sparkling for him.</p><p> </p><p>Cuts are one thing, worrisome and pesky but easy to deal with. Wounds like this, bandaged and hidden away—they worry Taeyong more than anything should, for when they love each other in intimate fashion, he cringes when lithe fingers run along his thighs. “<em> I’m okay, </em> ” he promises, and his tone can almost convince them both of the lie. “ <em> They just hurt. </em>”</p><p> </p><p>They always hurt, he realizes, and he only does it to direct the pain someplace else. </p><p> </p><p>He wishes Chittaphon would stop, and he’s pleaded with him before, making up worries he hadn’t even thought about but seem so natural to fall into now. It’s refusal, though, any time or place he asks, even with the gentlest tones and his kindest words imaginable. He says the throbbing of their voices never stops, it can’t, they understand nothing but how to scream and so he copes with it the only way he knows how.</p><p> </p><p>Taeyong stops asking after a long time, but the shopping bags include extra band-aids whenever he returns home with food and household necessities. How they all manage to live like this, in apparent normalcy, is beyond him, but at least one other person knows how strange it seems. He picks this apart without any trouble, and yet the angling of his view can never shift. </p><p> </p><p>They suppose nothing can be changed, but it never brought him any comfort to know that Jongin believed it, too.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>Something about their quieter, slightly-more merciful member intrigued him from the start. Maybe it was the willingness to listen to everything Taeyong said, or the occasional hugs he gave, but he thought they would get along okay.</p><p> </p><p>Cynicism isn’t something he expected to become part of the daily routine. Especially harsh words that come under the guise of suggestion, an easy thing to alter. Just a few tweaks here and there, he says. You can hide it, this is simple, I promise. No one will suspect a secret if you guard it right.</p><p> </p><p>Easy for him to say, the others mutter once he leaves, some air of being better and greater than this able to be sensed through each nerve of their bodies. It isn’t what he truly thinks, but they all seem to agree he acts like it was. Maybe his curse is less than complicated, hidden away with long sleeves and scarves tied round his neck, though it doesn’t give him a right to be the way he is. </p><p> </p><p>They’re all suffering, it’s not uncommon. He forgets that a lot.</p><p> </p><p>Taeyong tries, now, to back him into a corner. Confronting him about the way he affects their group, their straining ties among a fraying place that wavers in and out of sight, too real and not enough at once. All he says is “<em> I don’t have time for this, </em>” and storms off like the world won’t come crashing in like a glass dome ceiling around someone he’s supposed to call a friend. Because it does.</p><p> </p><p>He just can’t focus. They won’t blame Jongin for that, they shouldn’t, still everyone finds judgement easy when it comes to him. His burden is easy, they argue. In a way, that’s true. Unfiltered energy doesn’t spin in his bloodstream. Shrieks of the dead aren’t his only companion at night. </p><p> </p><p>There’s still a bit of monster in him, though, and Taeyong sees it in the way he moves. The way shallow breaths enter and leave his lungs. How he covers himself in blankets and sheets in slumber, too afraid to face himself and the endless, overlapping scars that carve through skin and muscle every night. </p><p> </p><p>The fabric ends up stained sometimes, despite his worst efforts. It’s never spoken of when extra laundry is washed in the morning, but the noticeable shift is somehow worse than ignorance.</p><p> </p><p>Everybody knows here. They all know secrets that aren’t secrets, whispered promises that travel empty halls and into well-made beds.</p><p> </p><p>Even Baekhyun is susceptible to the steady-growing influx. And some days that makes them wonder—just how much do they all know?</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>The first time he sees what’s going on, he doesn’t really understand.</p><p> </p><p>Who would do this to themself? And why so violently, so cruelly compared to all the other ways he could be hurting? Taeyong isn’t one to tell people what they should or shouldn’t do, not here with them, but in a way, his protective nature won’t stop working. </p><p> </p><p>When he sees Baekhyun hunched over the rim of the bowl, he’s confused, but he’s hurting, and there’s not a single part of it he can walk away from. There’s retching, dry heaving, noises he can’t stop hearing no matter how hard his memory tries to erase them. He remembers rubbing his back, trying to soothe stuttered breathing. It’s not the first time he’s done this, and he knows it won’t be the last.</p><p> </p><p>It’s difficult—agonizing, almost—to ask the means to an end. The only answer he receives is muffled, uneasy, and it’s not in response to his question anyway:</p><p> </p><p>“<em> Don’t worry about it. </em>”</p><p> </p><p>So he lets this slide, too. Even with the twisting of his guts speaking volumes more than words.</p><p> </p><p>The more often he notices, the easier it becomes to piece it together. Baekhyun never spoke of his own ailment; that’s what everyone refers to them as, and still his willingness was shaken each time before he gave up on giving any detail of it to anyone. To serve their curiosity will end the minimal confidence he has left, Taeyong believes, and if he’s right, then any proven stances can hold disregard for what he has to say.</p><p> </p><p>No one mentions how the cold sweat breaks out earlier on his face than the rest of theirs. Practice is stiff enough, barren floors and empty mirrors, shoes wilting into the ground with each misstep or untended movement. The collapse is anticipated, but they still jump at the sound, as if it hasn’t been a matter of time before their morbid expectation gets filled.</p><p> </p><p>He’s carried back by Jongin, who does his best to hide a grimace the entire way.</p><p> </p><p>Taeyong sees. He knows, but they return and Baekhyun doesn’t wake until dinner. </p><p> </p><p>The way he picks around it, all the food on his plate, has always concerned them. He’ll eventually chew up the vegetables, the rice. But it’s always the meat that does him in. It’s a struggle, he thinks, but when he lets the craving take hold, guilt is always stronger than need.</p><p> </p><p>Tonight, he will find their eldest member with an empty stomach, not satisfied with his doing but enough to get a semi-decent rest.</p><p> </p><p>His roommate doesn’t ask, and both of them are grateful. It’s not something to be discussed out in the open.</p><p> </p><p>Yukhei, they all know, doesn’t like the absence of white noise. But he can’t fix that with his voice alone.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>Most days are quiet now, given the slow decline to something they can call easy again. This—the acceptance—frightens him more than the lack of words.</p><p> </p><p>Rolling downward, in a greater light than should be needed, he can’t make out the figure standing in his doorway until he rubs the grit from both eyes. It’s only then he knows who it is, and the cavern in his chest doesn’t stop burning when Yukhei settles down on the sheets. A lost puppy too afraid to speak, yet the comparison only makes it worse.</p><p> </p><p>He’s not scary. And it’s never made him think twice until his laughter stopped filling the halls.</p><p> </p><p>The paper, smooth and never crumpled as typical notebooks are, sits in his lap. Taeyong wonders what he has to say that requires him alone. Pencil marks, grooves uncannily scribbled, mar the surface of this page, inhibiting only a few of the words he’s trying to spell out.</p><p> </p><p>‘We should wake up the hyungs.’</p><p> </p><p>Of course. It’s a small wonder he doesn’t cry this time, the same way he does so often these days. There’s so little he can say, barely anyone can hear him, and it’s turning something in him for overdrive. He’s not scathing, bitter, dark water running from his temples. But he knows that can consume him at any moment. Even gently working their fingers together, doors to another world beyond them, there’s a space in between he hopes they can close.</p><p> </p><p>Yukhei is no different than the others in his own way. He hates this, the way every single one can mask this like it’s easy, like they aren’t freaks and hated by the outside world. </p><p> </p><p>They aren’t safe here. Would anywhere else be better?</p><p> </p><p>Some days, the need overwhelms him. He has to speak, let himself hear a voice that can’t do anything but sing unless he wants to ruin the quiet. Cobwebs gather, enticing, but he doesn’t shatter it. Not yet. Not him. </p><p> </p><p>So he rambles. Stumbling over each language he recites, all alone so that harm cannot come to them unawares. And the first time it’s overheard, an oozing heart gushes sympathy no one can give.</p><p> </p><p>“<em> I don’t want to be like this. </em>”</p><p> </p><p>Footsteps echo as forced laughter—so easily shoved from their lungs now—weaves ugly patterns into his flesh. Behind closed doors, he can’t be someone. He can only be a weapon, and the thought smothers him like the frost crawling across his palms. Each word needling through his body, he can’t help crying himself to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>They know of his anger. Yet a similar pain claws too easily through Taemin’s chest, burrowing into his ribs, pulsing much too close to an already-injured heart.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>Late-bloomer. That’s what they call him, with love of course. </p><p> </p><p>A beautifully brilliant force of nature can never suffer with such a terrible wound. Everyone knows that. He’s perfect, he’s flawless, forgiving and ruthless both on and off the stage. And it’s almost believable with the mask shaded over bright honey skin.</p><p> </p><p>He sheds doubt like a snake, some days, and in others Taeyong can’t bring himself to pull the cloak from his eyes. The afternoon sun reminds him of last night, and he forces the atoms of his body to comply as he peels back the blanket laid over his senior. Disrespect was long thought of as something avoidable, but now they see none of it, for the good intentions are clearly enough to give him a reason.</p><p> </p><p>Taemin squirms as golden beams illuminate his cheeks. Stained again with polished rain. Faint indents cover once-smooth arms and he knows that they could be covered, but the elder’s body won’t listen to a direct order, even with his firmness. </p><p> </p><p>Jongin would shake sense into him. Take him by the hand, grasp a handful of new-softened hair, berate him until both sobbed into the other’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>The image only goes so far.</p><p> </p><p>Comfort would do nothing now anyway. Why glorify a sickening thing, a part of him that creates the beast every single man here is?</p><p> </p><p>His lithe fingers prod a dampened neck, rubbing the nape too hesitantly to be the person he knows is wanted. He thinks about speaking but no words and no motion emerge. Frozen in place, just the same now, if the rise of his chest beneath threadbare fabric counts for yet another variable.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not imagined, but he barely hears himself when the inquiry arises. He asks if Taemin can let him in, let him try, give him something to know instead of the emptiness eating him raw. “<em> It’s never going to stop, </em>” he slurs, and the way it reminds him of turquoise and glinting metal makes breakfast churn in his stomach.</p><p> </p><p>Anyone could complete the second part he means to say. But it never comes, leaving both him and the final word hanging in a shaky balance.</p><p> </p><p>Prey curves around its predator here, slotting too perfectly for what should be real and what exists only to the nightmares. He calls them bad dreams, and yet the veil between both worlds tugs at him, endless, cruel, rotting and sweet in comparison to home.</p><p> </p><p>Does he remember home? Taeyong tries to ask himself, for his own grasp of the outside world slips, only sometimes. </p><p> </p><p>But the wave could crash at any moment. And he’s determined to keep them safe.</p><p> </p><p>~</p><p> </p><p>However any lives he’s perished in, no matter the bloodshed and quiet breaths, he knows the way it ends. </p><p> </p><p>Painfully. Alone. It will never change, and he should accept each swelling wave as they come. Choking on saltwater isn’t terrible; he’s grown accustomed to the flavor, the disgust that used to wrench his body from gray shores with the tide. Now he embraces it. There is nothing more to lose than if he struggles against fate’s pull. </p><p> </p><p>There is nothing left to gain, but he resents the agonizing truth behind it. Delicacy at its finest, the rest suppose, secretly in awe of his methods. He no longer beholds himself as special, and somehow they all do.</p><p> </p><p>Every past is a barrage of memories shafting through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Taeyong tries, he truly does, to let himself bask in the sunlight, soaking warmth he offers to others into his skin. But he is reminded each day, in the moment grayness spills across the sky, that he is unworthy of what he gives and that falsity is all he offers with each smile he creates. </p><p> </p><p>He’s ugly, terrifying, harmless to only himself. Tearing his lips apart, the grimacing makes for a less beautiful sight than even his melancholy statue of glistening marble. </p><p> </p><p>It’s Mark who approaches today, another effort to drag his body from the wreckage with the young man who’s barely earned his title. Afternoon counts longer than believable, and though he’s yet to consume himself, an interest in this particular person may drive the term ‘cannibal’ to a superior extent. Everything is cold, it’s gray and disgusting and so is he because his efforts are pointless in comparison to the rest and his suffering is nowhere near so terrible. Does he feel up for a game? he’s asked suddenly. Without the firmness he fears it may have startled him into pure darkness.</p><p> </p><p>It’s ludicrous he needs to think it over. </p><p> </p><p>A small motion, hesitant only in the decision to make it and not for its representing answer, seals the question away. “<em> I’d like that. </em>” Hands nearly twine, but he stops before they do. The fear of disappointing him—sending no sunshine and birdsong his way—is crushing him, even without the all-encompassing knowledge that he’s failed them all. </p><p> </p><p>“<em> I don’t like being alone. </em>” And this is something he’s refused to admit before, but can unleash in every action now.</p><p> </p><p>It’s the attention from his hyungs, and the appreciation of his dongsaengs that shoves his body through the wiry branches, fleshy petals choking him with their scent before he’s gasping for clean air again. </p><p> </p><p>They breathe life into him. For when they cannot be perfect, the least they can do is be loved.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>okay so!! brief explanation ahead, first off these are everyone’s mutations in order of age:</p><p>mark — energy production / manipulation. the power runs within him, so in high-stress moments, his eyes &amp; veins glow turquoise, which tends to make him even more afraid of himself than before.<br/>yukhei — persuasion. i don’t know how to name this power, but when he prefaces with phrases such as “i think we should”, “why don’t we”, etc—people immediately follow his direction, even if it was unintentional.<br/>chittaphon — mediumship. he can hear the dead at the most inconvenient of times, and there are so many violent voices that he can barely make out anything but the screams.<br/>taeyong — solar empowerment. when the sun is out, he can lie in its rays and gain strength and energy. without the sun, he becomes more tired and typically sadder throughout the day.<br/>jongin — wound absorption. the injuries inflicted on him all hours of the day are echoes of all those related to him. the sketchy knowledge of his extended family leads them to believe these are the wounds being suffered by those of his own blood.<br/>taemin — double-worlded. he is connected to both a dream world and the real world, the first of which he enters at night. there, everything is perfect and everyone is okay, but he can only interact with this place for a short time because of how it affects his mental state/view of reality.<br/>baekhyun — animal morphing. if consumed regularly, meat will cause him to slowly turn into a carnivorous animal. his cravings are usually very strong, but he makes himself sick to avoid digesting the food that will turn him.</p><p>that was a lot.. anyway, the basis of their relationships are that it’s poly (taekai &amp; taeten are the most prominent bonds) &amp; everyone takes turns being the support most days, even when it’s hard. taeyong is usually the one to keep everyone together, but he needs his days, too, as shown in his section.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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